Little Lost Lambs Read online

  "Why the hell didn't you come back?" I asked him, remembering how he'd quit me.

  "Dick, do not be harrd on me," he panted—we were both running. "'Tis innocent I am av such an act. Maybe 'tis th' drink in me, but I've seen an' heard quare things th' night. They do be sayin' th' Dunstan was lost at sea."

  "It's true," I told him. "I heard an English officer say it."

  "Well then, Dick, it's sure as I'm Terence Borden that th' Belly Clary had a hand in it. Th' schooner was lyin' off th' Evangelistas whin th' liner come by."

  On our return trip to the gunboat Terry relapsed into slumber, his head on my shoulder, but my own head was occupied with what I had learned in town that night.

  Green as I was to the sea, the fact that a liner had disappeared in broad daylight struck me as incredible. That the Badger should come under suspicion was natural enough, considering the circumstances. I wondered if I ought to report what I had beard to Captain Godfrey or Lieutenant Kempton. I decided not to do so. It was none of my business.

  Chapter III

  Showing Hand—And Heels.

  It was two days after that, if I remember right, that we sighted the derelict we were after.

  It was early in the afternoon, and Borden dropped into my cabin after a session of small arms drill on deck. I was listening on the wireless. I had been doing that, off and on, for two days now.

  One ship, the British cruiser Wiltshire, I guessed, was sending out calls every hour or so in code. These calls did not vary, until an answer came for the first time early this morning. Then the cruiser tuned down her spark a bit and started a long conversation with the other craft—all Greek to me.

  After a while I gave it up, and turned to Borden who was watching me curiously, sitting on the bunk and filling his pipe. As usual we began to discuss the Dunstan, with Terry in the role of oracle.

  "There's something quare about it, either way you take it, Dick," he observed puffing at his pipe. "It doesn't shtand to rason that whin a new passenger ship passes us fifty knots out from th' strait, reelin' off her fifteen knots as swate as can be, with only a mild sea runnin' and her in th' very track of th' Australian boats, she'd go down with all hands without a worrd av warrning from th' wireless."

  This was old ground, but Terry seemed to have something up his sleeve.

  "What do you mean by 'either way you take it'?" I asked him.

  "I mane, Dick," he explained heavily, "that th' Blue Belt line has no business in these waters. An' why were there no passingers by th' decks av her whin she passed? An' why is th' king's ship Wiltshire running about as if her rudder was bewitched?"

  "If the liner's skipper was new to these waters he might have struck a reef along the Milky Way here," I hazarded. The Milky Way is a stretch of shore where the surf combs over the rocks miles from land and churns the sea white in heavy weather.

  "An' he might not. Sure, th' man had his charts, an' he was dead in th' shteamer track, wasn't he? A drunken shtoker could av brought her into th' strait safely an' gone to shlape over it, at that." Borden shook his head gloomily. He is a religious man, and has odds and ends of scripture at his tongue's end. "'For as th' wind goeth aver it, it is gone; an' th' place thereof shall know it no more,'" he quoted. "It is a sad thing, lad, if that fine ship is lost with all hands."

  "The sea takes its toll of ships, Terry."

  "It is not th' sea that takes ship's like th' Dunstan. Sure th' fishing craft go down, an' souls with thim. But th' men who die have taken their toll av livin' from th' sea for wife an' family. They pay th' price, Dick. Whin a grrand boat like th' liner we passed goes down it is th' handiwork av men. Men like Tom Roth, an' his kind, that taint th' waters. 'Tis th' scum av th' sea they are. There's more than we know, in th' loss av th' Dunstan!"

  "What's your idea then?" I asked him.

  "Th' liner was carryin' cargo from Melbourne through th' strait. An' where wad she go, after passin' th' strait? Why, to London. There's little space for cargo on a ship like that, an' it was not beef or wool she was carryin'."

  I began to get the drift of what Terry meant.

  "You mean——"

  "Th' Dunstan was a gold ship."

  Borden's words enlightened me. They explained the presence of the British cruiser and the lack of passengers on the liner. The Wiltshire had come to escort the ship on her way. And the Blue Belt liner was taking gold sovereigns from Sydney or Melbourne to the London banks. There remained the riddle of her fate; and Terry had no answer for that.

  I had taken up my record sheets of the wireless gibberish I had been listening to, before going to the bridge to make my daily report to the old man—Captain Godfrey—when some one poked his head in at the cabin door.

  It was one of the boys, a youngster about eighteen and he had news.

  "Derelict ahoy!" he hailed. "We've found it at last—over there on the starboard side. You can see it out there, about four miles away."

  Both of us jumped up and peered out of the port. Sure enough, quite a distance away on our port bow—we were headed due east toward the shore, some sixty miles south of the entrance to the strait—was a gray hulk, with a single funnel standing, and a list to one side.

  It looked like a large ship to me, larger than the gunboat. It was low in the water and the decks, as we could make out at that distance, were in a state of wreckage. The outline of the vessel puzzled me. It wasn't a tramp steamer, nor an ordinary passenger craft. I asked Borden what he made of it but he shook his head.

  "Are we goin' to heave to, an' blow it to kingdom come?" he inquired of the boy.

  "Not now, Terry," grinned the youngster. "It be quite a little while yet before you point that bow gun of yours at it. The old man says we're going on' after the liner, to try to pick up some of her boats, if we can.

  "I heard him tell Kempton that it was more important to save life if we could than to send the old hulk to the bottom. The men of the watch think that the old man believes some of the liner's boats were washed ashore south of Cape Pilar."

  It seemed foolish to me to leave the derelict that we'd come four thousand miles to destroy. There it lay not five miles away, a menace to any ships passing that way, yet we turned our backs on it. When I mentioned this to Terry, he grinned.

  "Sure, d'you ixpict th' boat to take wings an' fly th' sea, Dick? Or maybe you wad like to tie it to th' spot so it wad not run away. Do not you know that th' craft will shtay there until we come back? Some currents might drift it a few miles, but we'll find it."

  When I came on the bridge late that afternoon to make my report, the old man was busy in the chart-house, and I leaned against the rail and took things easy for a while. The derelict was 'way out of sight in back of us, and there was a stiff breeze coming from the same direction that was boosting the old ship along.

  When I first came aboard I used to call the mess-deck the lunch-room, and the engine-room the power-plant, but things were different now. I got tired of being the ship's goat the second day out, and got Terry to name over everything to me. I made some slips after that, only not bad ones. Once Terry caught me saluting the bosun, and suggested that it would be better not to do it.

  So, you see, I wasn't exactly a land-lubber now. I got to watching the commissioned officers off and on. The old man—Captain Godfrey—was a veteran who had seen better days. He was a stickler for discipline, and Lieutenant Kempton took after him.

  The "lieut" bawled me out several times in formation because I had dirt on my pants, or had left a shirt around the deck. I didn't waste any love on him, not then. Later, when we had to stick by each other in trouble, we sized each other up differently. It was right that afternoon that we started off on our expedition. This is how it happened.

  The Badger was heading pretty close inshore, with the usual vista of bare rocks and stunted shrubbery in view, when the old man and Kempton stepped out of the chart-house. I stood at attention, ready to make my report, but the old man was watching a schooner that was anchored inshore.
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  "By Jove, Kempton," said the old man, pointing her out, " Ill send a boat off to find out if the schooner has any news for us. She might have seen some wreckage alongshore, or sighted a boat. Take one of the cutters and a boat's crew, and see what you can find out. We'll stand by for you where we are. It's too shallow to work in by the schooner—I wonder what in damnation she's doing anchored there with a gale corning up."

  "Yes, sir," said Kempton.

  There was a jingle of bells as engines were stopped, a slow heave to the deck as the ship took the long roll of the swell, and the bosun's whistle mustered the watch aft to the boat's falls.

  Kempton never turned a hair, although he must have known that dirty weather was coming up. I thought that it was sheer old-fashioned idiocy for Captain Godfrey to take all that trouble to question a beggarly schooner's crew for details of wreckage that might have belonged to The Dunstan. He certainly bore all the earmarks of a tyrant to me then.

  "Take an extra man with you Kempton," he snapped out. Then he saw me. "Here, Henderson—have you anything for me?"

  "No, sir," I confessed. There were only those code scrawls, and they weren't for us. I wished the next minute I had mentioned them.

  "Well, get into the cutter—you may need an extra man, Kempton."

  That was how I came to be in the stern with Lieutenant Kempton, who loved me about as much I loved him, when the cutter put off to the schooner. The waves had grown bigger as soon as we were in the boat, so we couldn't see the schooner except when we were on top of one. Pretty soon we were near enough to make out the name painted on the bow, and I whistled to myself.

  It was the Bella Clara.

  "They must have good reasons for staying here," muttered Kempton as the cutter swung up near the other's rail. "There's a storm coming up, and they'll have to get out in a few minutes."

  Only one man was on deck when we jumped to the rail and climbed over. He was at the wheel, and scowled at us blackly when we came up to him. I took up the role of spokesman, knowing Spanish.

  "Where's Tom Roth?" I asked him, "We have business with him."

  The fellow jabbered out something to the effect that Roth was not on the schooner, and that we'd better clear out,

  "We'll go where we damn please," was Kempton's comment. "Ask him if he knows anything about the Dunstan."

  I did so, but the Spaniard repeated his warning, saying that a storm was coming up. This was my cue to tell the lieutenant what Borden had told me about the bad name of the schooner and what sort of a customer Roth was. Kempton heard me through without saying anything, and then declared that he was going down into the cabin to look things over, and for me to stay on deck.

  Well, he had nerve all right. My own nerves were beginning to get into action, with the deserted deck of the schooner before me and the big swells curling along the sides. And things livened up right away.

  In the first place the Spaniard at the wheel seemed to get a signal of some sort, for he gave a yell. A minute later a dozen men climbed out of the forecastle and began to swarm aft. I thought for a second that they were coming for me, but they jumped for the sails, taking out the reefs. At the same time some more of them got the anchor up.

  "They're getting ready to clear out, Henderson!" called one of our men from the cutter,

  I realized that myself, and felt that it was time to put Kempton wise to what was going on. There was a flapping of canvas and a snapping of reef-points as the wind began to puff into the sails. Out in the west, a bank of black clouds was scurrying toward us, with a white line of foam beneath where the waves were curling over. I didn't know much about navigation, but it was plain that it wouldn't do for the schooner to stay where it was. Kempton's situation made me anxious.

  "Lieutenant Kempton' I hailed down the companion. "The schooner is getting under way!"

  There was no response. It might have been that he didn't hear me in the general racket, but I doubted that. It looked like foul play to me. I cast a hurried glance at our cutter. The men were rowing now, to keep up as the schooner heeled over and began to move. About a dozen feet separated the laboring cutter from the fast-moving ship, the cutter being inshore and both ships moving north.

  "You at the wheel," I yelled, forgetting my Spanish, "come around into the wind!"

  If he heard me, he gave no sign. Instead, his teeth bared in a grin, and he let the wheel slip a few spokes. It was deliberate murder. The bow of the schooner fell off from the wind, and the whole side of the ship crashed against the cutter.

  There was a shout of warning and a curse from our men. The side of the cutter was stove in under the impact, and I caught a glimpse of our men struggling in the water as they were swept astern.

  The man at the wheel had deliberately wrecked the other craft, and perhaps sent half a dozen of my shipmates to their death. It was my first taste of the kind of thing that was to come.

  There was no chance to try to reach the swamped cutter as it was swept astern of us. A big wave caught the Bella Clara full on the side and climbed over the rail, sweeping the deck up to the poop where we were standing. The man at the wheel bent every ounce of his strength to getting the ship around on its course and out of the trough of the waves.

  Two or three more waves side-swiped us before our bow came around more into the wind, and we headed offshore just in time. When we did so, there were breakers a hundred yards away. Looking back to where our men were struggling, I saw that they all had found support on the upturned keel of the boat.

  They rested there, powerless to move, and I swore involuntarily as I saw behind them the white surface of the Milky Way, where they were drifting. At the same time I saw that another cutter was putting out from the gunboat to their aid.

  I turned on the man at the wheel, ready to knock him into the scuppers for what he had done. Instead of facing me, he cowered over the wheel, afraid to release his grasp. As he did so I saw another come up from the companion, out of the corner of my eye. It was not one of the crew—they were up forward.

  Then the man rushed me, bending low, and his fist caught me before I could dodge. The rush of a few steps from the companion gave him added weight, and six-footer that I am, I went over backward under the feet of the Spaniard. The outline of the other rose before me, and I felt a hand crush my windpipe. There was a numbing pain in the back of my neck. Then the curtain came down, and there wasn't any applause.

  Chapter IV

  The Capture.

  Well, what happened to me that night in the forepeak doesn't need to be told in detail. It was unpleasant, and it hadn't much bearing on the story. No; when I came to, as they say in the novels, I wasn't bound hand and foot, or gagged.

  When the pain in the back of my neck had eased up a bit, and my head had stopped going around in circles with the pain as the center of the orbit, I sat up in the bunk where I was fixed and took an inventory of the forepeak.

  About one-half the bunks along the sides were occupied by a varied assortment of unhealthy looking specimens. The stink of the place was a mixture of sweat, whisky, and filth. The only light came from a lantern standing on a cracker-box, By it I could make out that the men were asleep, and from the atmosphere of the place I guessed they had been having a time of it before they turned in.

  I had been moving about uneasily in the blankets, and when I stopped the blankets went right on moving. That was enough for me, and I climbed down. from the bunk, in spite of a splitting headache, and sat down on the box, taking the lantern between my knees. The stench of the cramped place and the motion of the ship made me feel faint again, and before I knew it I was sick—sick at the stomach.

  This didn't help matters any, and I made up my mind that I would have a change of scenery at all costs. I was about as down-spirited and miserable as possible. No, I didn't wonder about the gunboat and where the schooner was—not then.

  After putting out the lantern there wasn't a peep from any of the men, and I groped for the ladder in the dark. A minute later
I crawled out on deck. The cold, salty night wind did me a lot of good, and the spray, dashing over the bow, cleared some of the nausea out of my head.

  I began to wonder what had happened to Kempton. If there had been a man in the cabin, the same one that did for me, he might have put the lieutenant out of action. It had been one of those Charlie Chaplin stunts, with me and Kempton in the role of victims. Later, I found out that they got him more easily than me. We were both green at this slapstick stuff then, but we learned rapidly.

  When my eyes got used to the dark I could make out that there were only two men on deck, one in the bow and the other at the wheel. I could see them against the foam when a wave churned alongside. The wind seemed to have died down a bit. From its direction, I judged that we were still heading north-west.

  Well, I was too sick and low-spirited to do much planning, but it occurred to me that it would be a good idea to get into the after deck. Kempton was probably in there, dead or alive, and I wanted to find out what had happened to him. It was easy to get to the after companion. I crouched down along the rail and worked aft, where neither of the men on deck could see me. Every now and then part of a wave would slosh over the bulwark on me, but that did me more good than harm.

  It was a curious sensation going down the steps into that cabin. The place was as quiet as the grave, and as dark as a pit. I waited by the foot of the companion for a few minutes, and then I began to suspect that I was alone there.

  A few rats were scurrying around, and a door banged with the roll of the ship; still, there were no human noises—no snoring. I had about decided that I was the only one present when I heard a movement in one of the cabins a dozen feet away. It was a dull rustling, as though some one was turning over in bed or moving about. It was up to me to find out if it was Kempton.